I'm Bored
by Fanfiction Bard
Summary: Haymitch stumbles upon a series of perverted books written by a certain perverted Toad Sage. Slight Everlark, Peeta/Haymitch/Katniss friendship. T for language and some references.


Haymitch Abernathy was bored out of his mind.

It wasn't often this happened though. He had three favorite pastimes.

One, drinking.

Two, _more_ drinking.

And three, recovering from hangovers _from_ drinking with _even more_ drinking.

In total, as long as he had a bottle handy, he was never unoccupied.

The boredom began when he got a cold hard slap from sobriety. And from his two favorite, or should he say, _former_ favorite, Tributes.

About several months after the rebellion was over, Katniss and Peeta had made it their personal mission to get Haymitch off the bottle. They first tried nagging him and pissing about the "health risks of alcohol consumption", or some cheap crap like that, but he'd make sure to sneak a swig or five when he thought they weren't looking.

As it turns out, they _were_ looking.

What Haymitch hadn't expected was for those two sneaks to get rid of all his booze while he was _sleeping_, no less. A dirty move on their part, one which he wasn't quite ready to forgive them for. When they were searching for liquor, they had completely polished the place clean of anything remotely alcoholic, leaving no stone unturned. His cabinets? The fridge? His secret stash? All poured either down the sinks or the toilet.

And thus, spawning Haymitch's boredom.

He tried focusing all his attention on his geese, but he had done all he could for the day, not to mention those damn things tired him out. Haymitch also tried staring into space for extended periods of time, but that went out the window fast. So, he tried spending some time with Katniss and Peeta. They were good enough company, that is, when Peeta wasn't too busy baking, or when Katniss wasn't either hunting or enduring her pregnancy induced mood swings.

"If you're bored, then here's an idea; _read_ something," Peeta offered, frustrated with the man's whining. "A book never hurt anyone."

And so, that's when Haymitch found himself tearing apart the guest room, which happened to have a shelf full of books.

He had never ventured far in his home in Victor's Village, mainly due to having his hands full with his usual interests that lied in glass bottles. The only rooms of his home he had ever been in were the living room, the kitchen, his own room, and of course, the bathroom. But even if he had known that there was a guest room full of books, he probably would never have bothered with it anyway. It was probably filled with history books or autobiographies of Capitol bigwigs filled with nothing more than flattering drivel about a certain white-bearded President that was in the deepest, darkest pit of hell by now.

And he was right.

Except for a few books.

"'Make-Out Tactics?'" Haymitch wrinkled his nose at such a strange name for a book. Each of the others had similar titles, like "Make-Out Dreams", "Make-Out Paradise", "Make-Out Violence", and his personal favorite, "Make-Out Strap".

And the titles weren't the only strange thing about them. They were all clearly written by the same author, who had a name stranger than the ones on the books' front covers.

"'Jiraiya the Toad Sage?' What the hell?" Haymitch had never heard the name "Jiraiya" before, and definitely no one with the words "Toad" or "Sage" in it. But what mainly drew his attention was that on the description on the back cover, there was no mention of the Capitol. None whatsoever.

Instead, some bull about some guy meeting some girl or vice versa, and them having some secret love affair full of scandal and mystery.

Sounds like stuff Effie would read.

But it wasn't as if he had a lot of options. He had done everything he possibly could.

Take care of the geese? Check.

Annoy Peeta to the point of exasperation? Check.

Piss Katniss off to the point of her throwing pottery at him? Double check.

So, with nothing better to do, Haymitch plopped down on the nearest couch and flipped the first book open.

* * *

><p>Peeta and the three-months pregnant Katniss Mellark walked up the steps to the front door to Haymitch's house.<p>

"Would you relax," Katniss said as Peeta held her shoulders as if he was afraid that she would fall over at any moment. "I'm pregnant, not made of glass."

Ever since they found out she was pregnant, Peeta was extra protective of her, which annoyed her to absolutely no end.

"I know," Peeta winked at her. "I'm just looking for an excuse to hold you."

Katniss shook her head, resisting the urge to smile at her husband. "Do you think he'll actually be sober when we get there?" she asked, changing the subject. "I asked Sae not to give him any, but I'm still not sure."

"Well, we'll see in a minute," Peeta replied, pulling the door open, thinking that tonight would be how the three of them usually spent their time, filled with banter, laughing, and a fair amount of death threats.

He was wrong.

Neither of them ever expected, never in a _million_ years, would be Haymitch lounging on the couch, holding nothing other than a _book_.

Haymitch.

With a _book_.

And the only thing weirder than that was that he was actually _reading_ it.

Not using it in some convoluted drinking game, but _reading_ it.

The two spent a good few minutes just staring at the sight before them, before Katniss exclaimed.

"Haymitch!" said man jumped from the dark-haired woman's voice, almost dropping the book. He shot the two an annoyed glare.

"Where'd you two come from?"

"Seriously?" Katniss asked. "We've been standing here for a while."

"Uh-huh," he said indifferently before turning his eyes back to his book. "Would you mind sweetheart?"

Katniss frowned, and wrote this off as Haymitch's usual peculiarity, and sat down at the

"You two gonna be here long?"

"Aren't we staying for dinner?" Peeta asked.

"I don't believe so," Haymitch replied, not looking up from the page.

"Yes we are," Katniss said, getting annoyed. "You _invited_ us."

"Huh, really?" his face was still glued to the book. "That was today? I thought it was next week."

"You invited us _yesterday_."

"I think I would have recalled that."

"Oh for goodness sake," She ripped the book out of Haymitch's hands, ignoring his protests, and looked at the current page which her mentor was.

"Uh…" Haymitch looked worried. "You might not wanna…"

Katniss read the pages for just a few moments until she looked up, eyes bigger than dinner plates, jaw hanging wide open, face as red as a beet.

"You still reading?" he asked, his apprehension turning into amusement as he grinned knowingly. "Or can I have my book back now?"

"_Are you…do you even…how can you… of all the…you…goddamn…Ugh!_"

Katniss, after throwing the book halfway across the room, wasted no time exiting the room, not noticing Peeta's confusion.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, and Haymitch's grin widened.

"Here," he said, grabbing one of the other books he left on the coffee table "My gift to you."

His befuddlement grew, only to be replaced by annoyance as he read the ridiculous title, "_Make out Tactics_."

"What am I going to do with this, Haymitch?"

"Read it."

"No, really? I was planning on baking it into a cake."

"Just trust me on this, blondie, you're _gonna want_ this."

"If Katniss sees this, judging from the show she pulled just now, she'll kill me."

"There's a way _she_ can benefit from it too, you know."

"What? How?"

"Read a page."

"Which one?"

"Doesn't matter. They're _all_ good."

Curiosity getting the better of him, Peeta opened to a random page, and snapped it shut just as fast.

"_How_," Peeta looked rather embarrassed. "Is this going to help Katniss?"

Haymitch gave him a look that clearly was a nonverbal insult to the younger man's intelligence before Peeta understood what the older man meant.

"Haymitch that's…it…" his embarrassment began to fade as he thought more about it. "Huh. It could actually work."

Peeta almost got lost on his way to his house that night, because he was too busy soaking up the details of his recently acquired book.

* * *

><p>"By the stupid way you two are smiling at each other, I take it my little gift to Peeta helped you both out, eh sweetheart?"<p>

"Shut the hell up."

* * *

><p>"So <em>then<em>, naturally, Sai got a HUGE punch in the face from Sakura after he said that her face is shaped like – Hey Kakashi Sensei? You listening? Hellooooooooo! Anybody in there?! Sensaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

The masked ninja looked up from his books to see a rather disgruntled looking Naruto with several noodles dangling from his mouth.

"Yes?" he asked innocently.

"Arf foo efen lifenen ta me?" Kakashi didn't catch what he said, nor did he look up. Had he did, he would have gotten a rather unpleasant view of a messy mix of chewed-up pork and greasy noodles.

"Naruto, don't talk with your mouth full," he scolded half-heartedly after casually turning the page.

"I don't get what the deal is with those books," Naruto muttered after swallowing. "I couldn't even get past the first chapter without fallin' asleep!"

Though Kakashi didn't speak, Naruto could practically _hear_ his sensei mentally disagreeing with him.

Kakashi remembered when he had gotten his first several copies of the Toad Sage's books. Needless to say, he has swept through each and every one of them, as well as a second time.

Then he lost them all with a small accidental misfire with his Sharingan's Kamui, sending them to some other dimension, where another lucky bastard was reading them.

"Always wondered what happened to those…" he muttered.

"Huh?" Naruto said as he continued with his ramen. "You say something Sensei?"

"No, nothing," he said, burying his masked face in the next page of his book.


End file.
